This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is intended
to provide rapid support to revolutionary applied energy research (Studies)
that may lead to new ARPA-E programs to develop transformational and disruptive
energy technologies. Studies are defined as single-phase efforts of durations
less than 12 months and cost less than $500,000. Awards will be issued through Grants.

The broad objective of this FOA is to identify disruptive concepts in energy-related technologies that challenge the status quo and represent a leap beyond today’s technology. An innovative concept alone is not enough; the idea must also have the potential to be impactful—meaning that, if successful, it represents a fundamentally new paradigm in energy technology with the potential to make a significant impact on ARPA-E’s Mission Areas (see Section I.A). Concepts of particular interest have the potential to achieve percentage-level reductions in U.S. energy consumption, energy-related imports, or greenhouse gas emissions.

Submission Deadlines

The MOSAIC (Micro-scale Optimized Solar-cell Arrays with Integrated Concentration) Program will fund potentially disruptive technologies and related system concepts to achieve new performance and cost benchmarks for solar-electric generation from photovoltaics (PV). Specifically, MOSAIC will develop novel concepts that integrate arrays of high-performance micro-scale concentrated PV (micro-CPV) elements into modules that are similar in profile and cost to traditional non-concentrated “flat-plate” (FP) PV, but achieve the performance level associated with conventional Concentrated Photovoltaics (CPV). Realization of the aggressive targets of MOSAIC will require the formation of R&D teams from several communities, including material scientists, electrical and packaging engineers, optical engineers, micro-scale manufacturing specialists, and researchers in polymers and opto-electronics.

Contact Information

Please contact the email address above for questions regarding Funding Opportunity Announcements. ARPA-E will post responses on a weekly basis to any questions that are received. ARPA-E may re-phrase questions or consolidate similar questions for administrative purposes.

The MOSAIC (Micro-scale Optimized Solar-cell Arrays with Integrated Concentration) Program will fund potentially disruptive technologies and related system concepts to achieve new performance and cost benchmarks for solar-electric generation from photovoltaics (PV). Specifically, MOSAIC will develop novel concepts that integrate arrays of high-performance micro-scale concentrated PV (micro-CPV) elements into modules that are similar in profile and cost to traditional non-concentrated “flat-plate” (FP) PV, but achieve the performance level associated with conventional Concentrated Photovoltaics (CPV). Realization of the aggressive targets of MOSAIC will require the formation of R&D teams from several communities, including material scientists, electrical and packaging engineers, optical engineers, micro-scale manufacturing specialists, and researchers in polymers and opto-electronics.

Contact Information

Please contact the email address above for questions regarding Funding Opportunity Announcements.
ARPA-E will post responses on a weekly basis to any questions that are received. ARPA-E may re-phrase questions or consolidate similar questions for administrative purposes.

Submission Deadlines

The objective of an ARPA-E OPEN FOA is simple, yet comprehensive: to support the development of potentially disruptive new technologies across the full spectrum of energy applications. ARPA-E seeks to support transformational research in all areas of energy R&D, covering transportation and stationary applications. Areas of research responsive to this FOA include (but are not limited to) electricity generation by both renewable and non-renewable means; electricity transmission, storage, and distribution; energy efficiency for buildings, manufacturing and commerce, and personal use; and all aspects of transportation, including the production and distribution of both renewable and non-renewable fuels, electrification, and energy efficiency in transportation.

Because of the enormous breadth of energy technologies solicited under an OPEN FOA, it is impossible to provide the well-defined technical targets contained in an ARPA-E FOA for a focused technology program. Rather, ARPA-E asks applicants to address the potential impact of the proposed technology on the agency’s Mission Areas: reducing imported energy, reducing energy-related emissions, and improving energy efficiency. The critical question for applicants to consider in assessing potential impact is: “If it works, will it matter?” In a FOA for a focused technology program, this question has already been answered by ARPA-E. If an applicant can demonstrate that the proposed technology can achieve the technical targets specified in the FOA for a focused program, the agency believes that the technology can have significant impact on the agency’s missions. In an OPEN FOA, the burden of demonstrating potential impact lies solely upon the applicant, who must make the strongest possible case for why the proposed technology will matter – that it has the potential to change our energy future.

Contact Information

Please contact the email address above for questions regarding Funding Opportunity Announcements. ARPA-E will post responses on a weekly basis to any questions that are received. ARPA-E may re-phrase questions or consolidate similar questions for administrative purposes.

Through the Network Optimized Distributed Energy Systems (NODES) program, ARPA-E will fund the development of innovative and disruptive technologies for real-time management of transmission and distribution networks by system-wide control and coordination of flexible load and Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) to improve the overall efficiency and reliability of the U.S. electric grid and enable renewables penetration at the 50% level or greater. The objective is to reliably manage, locally or globally, dynamic changes in the grid by leveraging these additional grid resources’ capability to provide ancillary services to the electric grid at different time scales. This will facilitate greater grid resiliency, security, and flexibility, while having minimal impact on customer quality of service (QoS).

The expected system level benefits include net energy savings, reduction of CO2 emissions in power generation by directly offsetting load consumption by renewable energy production, and lowering required operating reserves. Additional savings are expected to be achieved by supporting higher penetration of Distributed Generation (DG) that is expected to reduce energy-delivery losses by delivering energy where it’s needed, and when it’s needed.

Contact Information

Please contact the email address above for questions regarding Funding Opportunity Announcements.
ARPA-E will post responses on a weekly basis to any questions that are received. ARPA-E may re-phrase questions or consolidate similar questions for administrative purposes.

ARPA-E seeks to fund innovative ideas for the creation of large-scale, realistic power system models (transmission, distribution, and hybrid models that include both transmission and distribution), validated by real data, and relevant for the testing and evaluation of emerging power system optimization algorithms. The models created under this program must be releasable to the public with no restrictions. Power system network models (section D.1) will be accompanied by a large number of detailed scenarios that represent specific operating points. These scenarios should correspond to the characteristics of the grid today as well as future (i.e. scenarios that reflect different load characteristics or with substantial renewable generation). ARPA-E also seeks to fund the creation of a public power system model repository (section D.2). It is intended that the repository will become a long-term community resource existing well past ARPA-E’s initial investment. The models and repository created in this program may be used as the basis for an ARPA-E OPF algorithm competition.

Contact Information

Please contact the email address above for questions regarding Funding Opportunity Announcements.
ARPA-E will post responses on a weekly basis to any questions that are received. ARPA-E may re-phrase questions or consolidate similar questions for administrative purposes.

Submission Deadlines

The GENSETS - GENerators for Small Electrical and Thermal Systems - SBIR/STTR Program – seeks to fund the development of potentially disruptive generator technologies that will enable widespread deployment of residential Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems. Here, CHP is defined as the distributed generation of electricity from piped-in natural gas fuel at a residence or a commercial site complemented by use of exhaust heat for local heating and cooling. If adopted widely by U.S. residential and commercial sectors, GENSETS CHP systems could lead to annual primary energy savings of more than 5 quadrillion BTU (quads). GENSETS systems could also provide annual CO2 emissions reductions of more than 200 million metric tons, which is roughly 10% of the CO2 produced annually from U.S. electricity generation and 4% of total U.S. annual CO2 emissions.

The GENSETS Program seeks transformative generators/engines with 1 kW of electrical output (kWe) that have high efficiency (40% fuel to electricity), long life (10 years), low cost ($3,000 per system), and low emissions. Heat engines and generators capable of achieving these targets may include internal and external combustion engines, turbines, and solid state devices such as thermophotovoltaics, thermionic emitters, and thermoelectrics. It is anticipated that the same technologies developed for 1-kWe engines in GENSETS could be adapted to build larger engines with even higher efficiencies for various commercial sectors of the U.S.

Contact Information

Please contact the email address above for questions regarding Funding Opportunity Announcements.
ARPA-E will post responses on a weekly basis to any questions that are received. ARPA-E may re-phrase questions or consolidate similar questions for administrative purposes.

Submission Deadlines

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy (ARPA-E) intends to issue a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) entitled Generating Realistic Information for Development of Distribution And Transmission Algorithms (GRID DATA). This FOA will solicit applications to pursue innovative research targeted at developing public large-scale, realistic and validated electric power system network models. These models should have the detail required for the successful development and testing of new, transformational power system optimization and control algorithms and substantially reduce the barriers to the testing and ubiquitous adoption of new strategies for grid optimization and control, including new Optimal Power Flow algorithms.

ARPA-E believes the existence of these models would enable more complete evaluations of emerging grid optimization algorithms. These new algorithms promise to enable increased grid reliability and safety as well as significantly increase economic and energy efficiency and substantially reduce the costs of integrating high penetrations of variable renewable generation technologies into the electric power system in the United States. These models would also enable formal grid optimization competitions, as have been successfully employed in many other optimization-dependent fields and industries. Special care will be required to ensure that these new models are immediately available for a large-scale, open competition.

Currently, ARPA-E anticipates two primary areas of interest in the FOA: (1) the creation of large-scale, realistic real-world or synthetic power system models relevant for the testing and evaluation of emerging power system optimization algorithms and (2) the creation of a public, interactive power system model repository.

As a general matter, ARPA-E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. The Teaming Partner List will be available on ARPA-E eXCHANGE (http://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov), ARPA-E’s online application portal, starting in April 2015. The Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically, until the close of the Full Application period, to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on this list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Notice, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA-E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate the qualifications of the entities that self-identify themselves for placement on the Teaming Partner List. ARPA-E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered.

This Notice does not constitute a FOA. No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the final FOA, expected to be issued in May 2015, for instructions on submitting an application and for the terms and conditions of funding.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA–E) intends to issue a new Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) in October, 2015 for technologies to transform the insulation and other qualities of existing single pane windows. In aggregate, these inefficient windows are substantial consumers of the nation’s heating energy. The overarching goal of the SHIELD program is to improve these windows without resorting to complete replacement. To achieve widespread adoption, the installed price must be minimized, and excellent qualities beyond insulation such as appearance, condensation resistance, and soundproofing will be needed. The demands upon the materials and structures will be challenging. ARPA–E held a workshop on this topic in November 2014; information on this workshop can be found at the webpage http://ARPA–E.energy.gov/?q=workshop/single-pane-window-efficiency-workshop .

Currently, ARPA–E anticipates that the SHIELD program will have two areas of interest.

1. Structures that are applied to or built up onto existing windowpanes.

2. Manufactured windowpanes or structures that replace the panes in existing single pane window sashes.

In order to realize the goals of the SHIELD program, expertise in the following areas may be useful: (i) transparent materials, coatings, and layers with very low thermal conductivity, (ii) materials, coatings, and layers with low thermal emissivity, (iii) glass pane design and manufacturing, (iv) window film design and manufacturing, (v) acoustical properties of materials, (vi) thermal and optical modeling of windows, (vii) window performance and lifetime testing, (viii) window soundproofing, and (ix) window marketing.

As a general matter, ARPA–E strongly encourages outstanding scientists and engineers from different organizations, scientific disciplines, and technology sectors to form new project teams. Interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration spanning organizational boundaries enables and accelerates the achievement of scientific and technological outcomes that were previously viewed as extremely difficult, if not impossible.

The Teaming Partner List is being compiled to facilitate the formation of new project teams. ARPA-E intends to make the Teaming Partner List available on ARPA–E eXCHANGE (http://ARPA-E-foa.energy.gov), ARPA–E’s online application portal, in July 2015. Once posted, the Teaming Partner List will be updated periodically, until the close of the Full Application period, to reflect new Teaming Partners who have provided their information.

Any organization that would like to be included on the Teaming Partner list should complete all required fields in the following link: https://ARPA-E-foa.energy.gov/Applicantprofile.aspx. Required information includes: Organization Name, Contact Name, Contact Address, Contact Email, Contact Phone, Organization Type, Area of Technical Expertise, and Brief Description of Capabilities.

By submitting a response to this Notice, you consent to the publication of the above-referenced information. By facilitating this Teaming Partner List, ARPA–E does not endorse or otherwise evaluate
the qualifications of the entities that self-identify themselves for placement on the Teaming Partner List. ARPA–E will not pay for the provision of any information, nor will it compensate any respondents for the development of such information. Responses submitted to other email addresses or by other means will not be considered.

This Notice does not constitute a FOA. No FOA exists at this time. Applicants must refer to the final FOA, expected to be issued in October 2015, for instructions on submitting an application and for the terms and conditions of funding.